Comeback for scandal firm's chief

JOHN Williams, a founder of Knight Williams, the firm at the centre of one of the biggest scandals of the Nineties, is back in business, courtesy of the Financial Services Authority.

The FSA has given Williams approved status as a director of Carmel Financial Planning, a firm of advisers based in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, despite his chequered past.

KW, which sold high-charging, often unsuitable products to vulnerable elderly people, was fined £50,000 by regulators in 1994. A year later it was ordered to set aside nearly £2m to compensate victims. But Williams and fellow directors, Robin Knight Bruce and Stephen Prescott, sidestepped the order by putting into voluntary liquidation the subsidiary that was liable for the claims.

Williams and the other bosses then proceeded to milk millions of pounds out of their defunct empire through dividends, directors' fees and share sales, while many elderly investors were left nursing their losses. The trio also launched an audacious claim for £10m damages against the Financial Services Authority for loss of commission income and 'damage to their reputations in the financial world'. They later withdrew the claim.

John Finlow, 79, a Knight Williams investor, said: 'It is outrageous that the Financial Services Authority is allowing him back into the business.'